fix(content-distribution): keep node post in status_on_publish when hub schedules

[wil-gerken]

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• Have you followed the Newspack Contributing guideline?
• Does your code follow the WordPress' coding standards and VIP Go coding standards?
• Have you checked to ensure there aren't other open Pull Requests for the same update/change?

Changes proposed in this Pull Request:

When a post is distributed to a node as a draft and the hub later schedules it, the node was auto-publishing the post regardless of the status_on_publish setting.

The root cause: post_status = 'future' fell through to the else branch in Incoming_Post::insert(), bypassing the status_on_publish check.

Once a node post has a future status, WordPress schedules the publish_future_post cron event, which then calls wp_publish_post() directly. This bypasses class-incoming-post.php and the status_on_publish logic.

This change adds a future branch that checks status_on_publish before applying the status.

If status_on_publish is a non-publish value (e.g. draft, pending), the node post stays in that status and the WP cron never schedules publication.

If status_on_publish is publish or unset, the node mirrors the hub's future status so both sites publish on the same schedule.

Hub sends	status_on_publish	Node result
future	draft	draft <-- fixes the bug
future	pending	pending
future	publish	future (mirrors hub schedule)
publish	any	unchanged (existing behaviour)

Closes NPPM-2656

Note: Following Copilot's reviews, I added some defensive guards for missing status_on_publish key across three access points in insert() (status handling, meta storage), plus an additional test covering this unset payload scenario.

How to test the changes in this Pull Request:

Before applying this PR:

1. On the hub, create a new post with an easy-to-identify headline. Save it as a Draft and distribute it to a node.
2. On the node, go to All Posts (/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=post) and wait ~2 minutes for the post to arrive. It will show as Draft as expected.
3. On the hub, modify the headline slightly for easy identification, then schedule it for tomorrow.
4. On the node, wait ~2 minutes for the update to pull. The post will be Published <-- this is the bug.

After applying this PR:

1. On the hub, create a second new post with an easy-to-identify headline. Save it as a Draft and distribute it to a node.
2. On the node, go to All Posts and wait ~2 minutes. It will show as Draft as expected.
3. On the hub, modify the headline slightly, then schedule it for tomorrow.
4. On the node, wait ~2 minutes. The post will remain Draft <-- the bug is fixed.

Other information:

• Have you added an explanation of what your changes do and why you'd like us to include them?
• Have you written new tests for your changes, as applicable?
• Have you successfully ran tests with your changes locally?

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes a content-distribution edge case where hub-scheduled posts (post_status = future) could bypass status_on_publish on nodes, leading to unintended node publication via WordPress scheduling behavior.

Changes:

• Add explicit future post-status handling in Incoming_Post::insert() to respect status_on_publish.
• Add unit tests covering future behavior for both non-publish and publish status_on_publish values.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
includes/content-distribution/class-incoming-post.php	Adds a future-status branch to apply status_on_publish logic and avoid unintended node scheduling/publishing.
tests/unit-tests/content-distribution/test-incoming-post.php	Adds regression tests validating node behavior when receiving future status updates from the hub.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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[leogermani]

Thank you!

[github-actions]

Hey @wil-gerken, good job getting this PR merged! 🎉

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